Wichita eagle., 1887-08-10
ALL SORTS OF MISTAKES.
ERRORS OF VISION, SPEECH, HEAR
ING, MEMORY AND JUDGMENT.
Tricks Played by the Minds of People.
The Waiter Who Looked Like Chauncey
Depew-Some Costly SIistakes-Slips of

1
Depew-Some Costly SIistakes-slips OF
| Memory.
There is good deal of uniformity in the
| mistakes that people make. For instance, q
| large number of persons every year put let
| tiers in the postoffice without postage stamps
| or without addresses, or with wrong addresses
| Such mistakes are so common that various
| expedients have become necessary to correct
them Among these are the printing Of the
names of the senders on the outside, the shor,
| postage stamp and the bulk Of the work of
| the dead letter Office.
| The mistakes that travellers are apt to make
| in getting out at the wrong station or passing
| their stations are guarded against by the
practice of calling out the names Of stations.
| Mistakes Of hearing are many and vexa-
| tious. Few persons can pronounce the letters
| NJ and n separately so as to make it certain
which is used. This is recognized among
| printers, who when the question is raised viii
say, an for nuts" Among stenographers the
! mistakes of hearing are diligently guarded
against by close attention to the context, by
means of which many errors of hearing are
detected. Long practice will give stenog.
rapher great skill in this respect The mis-
takes that young photographers make, who
write from sound regardless Of sense, are
often very ludicrous.
MISTAKES OF SPEECH
Mistakes of speech are very common. Thus
in a law case counsel frequently say plaintiff
when they mean defendant They will say
Mr.. Jones when they mean Mrs Jones. The
mind works SO rapidly In both speaking and
reading that words of similar appearance and
sound are frequently used for one and
| another Thoughts follow one and another
SO rapidly that they often appear to overtake
one another so that one which should be
spoken last is uttered first. If thought is
uppermost in the mind of any one, it is prob
able that it will find utterance at some most
inopportune time and place. Thus what are
called absent minded people are those who
are so absorbed with one idea that they be-
ccme oblivious to surroundings and keep at
tention riveted upon that idea, no matter how
vexatious may be the result This state of
mind, while it is characteristic of great
genius, and is necessary TO attain perfection
N any art or science, gives rises to many
ludicrous results, and is largely used for the
funny characters of fiction.
Mistakes of vision are many We think we
see many things which we do not see, or
which we see but partially. The stories of
mistaken identity are as old as the world
Shakespeare's Two Dromios are reproduced
every day. The law books are full Of cases
where men have sworn that strangers were
tteir wives or women have sworn that stran-
gers were their husbands. All sorts of mar
tyrdom have been suffered by people who
have had the misfortune either to look like
bad people or to be mistaken for them. Twins
have from time immemorial played pranks
with their friends and enjoyed their discom-
future. There was once waiter at Del.
monico's who bore such strong resemblance
to Chauncey Depew that one night, when
Chauncey failed to attend at the New Eng
land dinner where he was well known, a wag
brought in the waiter, and the members
cheered him several minutes before the Joke
was discovered. A man who looks like jay
Gould or Barnum or DR.. Talmage, or any
other well known person, soon finds life O.
burden i'll the constant necessity for explain
ing mistakes.
ERRORS THAT WERE COSTLY
Mistakes of architects and engineers are
sometimes costly. An illustration is seen in
the difference between the two big Wander
bilt grain elevators at the North River depot.
One was built broadside to the stream. The
other, at about the same cost, was built with
the end to the stream on pier, 80 that YES
sells may come up simultaneously on both
sides. The position of the first one was a
costly mistake.
Old Commodore Vanderbilt was a shrewd
man when looking at any new fashioned
thing. Once man came to him with q de-
vice for manufacturing fresh water on board
ship out of salt water. Part Of the apparatus
was donkey engine to pump the sea water
in. The commodore said to the inventor:
"What the ID do you want of that dom
key engine? Whenever the ship is in motion
all you need to do to take i'll salt water is to
run in a pipe from the bow of the ship.
There, I've saved half your id old ma
chine" And the commodore was right.
The mistakes of the engineers who worked
on the first elevated railroad in the city were
many, and the various experiments for mo-
tors were costly. One idea was to run the
cars by an endless chain, which ran in the d.
rection Of up town on the elevated structure
and back under the street. The consequence
was that when the chain broke the ends could
only be joined by digging up the street. 1t
cost good deal Of money to find this out
Some very valuable stationary engines were
buried under the sidewalk many years The
engineers tried several miles Of this endless
chain, over and under, Size and side, and
costly chain it was The wire rope was not
then available.
The memory is largely made up OF the as
ISOLATION of ideas. Most of what we know
lies dormant in the mind, to be awakened by
some idea revived by association A very
slight arrangement of the mental faculties
produces curious mistakes of association, so
that ideas arise in the wrong place. There is
close analogy between the confusion of
thought that occurs in dreams and insane
rawlings There are lucid intervals in both
It's not unusual for well persons who have
IN mind particular person to mistake others
for that person. Such mistakes are frequent
with persons of disordered mind, who are apt
TO mistake almost anybody for some others
who have done them real or fancied injury,
and whose image appears to be ever present
in the memory, and easily called up by some
slight association of ideas.
Mistakes of forgetfulness are apt to become
mors frequent as We grow older. All sorts Of
expedients are adopted to provide for it a
man who had been caught several times with
out money. through forgetting TO change his
pocketbook when he changed his clothing,
adopted the expediens of keeping money in
each suit Of clothing, so that when he did for
get he was prepared for it-New York Sua-
Enormous Suovaakes.